Bubbe

Life is never quite real until it happens.

I watched for years as she slowly slipped away. I watched the forgetting. I watched the regression. I waited for the day when she could say "I love you too" no longer. I hoped it would never come, but seasons change and years pass and the innocence of first snowfall is broken. White turns to gray, beauty to slush, and Death reaches out his shriveled fingers. I know she couldn't refuse.

I miss my grandmother. I miss the woman who laughed and tickled and did everything to make me smile. I miss the woman who played with me in pajamas and saved me from the Wicked Witch and made funny faces as soon as the camera flashed. I miss the lingering smell from latkes and the hours of anticipation New Hampshire bound. I miss the laughing and the hugging and the coming together again. I miss having a Bubbe to call my own.

The mirrors are covered, but I've stopped looking anyhow, and instead of ball drops, funeral bells will reign. The world keeps turning. New Years is on the way.

K. 545

Sometimes, I like to retreat into the furrows of my mind and toy with imagination. I like to curl into myself and allow myself to wonder. It's become less about answers and more about journeys, and as I meander the crevices of my thoughts again, I find myself content. 

I met a boy on the bus today who knew me with a glance. We'd never met before, but he looked at me and smiled, and when our eyes met, I was bare. I know he knew it too. I didn't ask and he didn't tell. I never caught his name. 

I had a friend knock on my door earlier to see if I was here. I answered. He saw through my facade and uncovered my exhaustion. They're begging me to sleep. 

My joints are cracking more than usual. I lean into the stretch. G major, but begging to resolve. I see tonic on the horizon, but the sun has already set. 

Tomorrow. 

There's a world of possibility and I'm aching to discover it. My shoulder grinds in its socket. My toes tangle with carpet. Tea tonight was chamomile. Cup number three is cooling.

Tomorrow. 

Why do we live to wait for sunrise? Why do we crave the break of day?

Tomorrow.

The development is just as beautiful. Dark does not suddenly turn light, and I love the moments of gray.

Tomorrow.

I know C major is dawning. I'll sit and watch it unfold.

Rekindling

I've claimed my corner of the library and have plans to watch the days tick by. I take comfort in the pen on paper, the highlighter yellow and pink and purple brightening my page. The sky is dark now, but tonight we light another candle. Tonight another spark will burn.

December chill is in the air. I feel it. I feel the cold and the wind and the moments of unease. The clock is running and the time is flying and I'm still taking baby steps.

I am determined not to fail.

You see, there's so much light between cracked corners. There's so much warmth in a friendly stare, in a gentle touch, in a laughing voice across the miles. Currents lace from me to you and I know Winter must mean well.

Thanks Giving

November leaves have fallen. It's just above freezing and only getting colder. It will take months to defrost. But tonight it doesn't matter. Tonight I still feel warm.

I'm holding on to the things that matter. I'm letting the rest float away with the breeze. I am not Atlas. The Earth is not mine to bear. I have the right to be free.

Flowers in the Dark

She's running away from her problems. Every day, for at least two miles. And she knows the elliptical isn't moving, but she can't bear to stand still. So she faces east in the window and she runs.

And there are things she doesn't tell you. Like how she wants to be a singer, but doesn't think she can. And how she doesn't like to sleep alone. And how she doesn't wear a jacket so she can pretend it isn't cold. And how she's afraid to say goodbye.

She wishes that you knew.

She loves the feel of empty and the taste of words as they flow onto a page and how she sometimes sees you smile from the corner of her eye.

You have a beautiful smile.

In the mornings she craves completion and in the evenings a simple dream. Eyes close, but there is no slumber. She reminds herself to live in the moment, breathe in morning and the freshness of new day. Possibility. Wonder.

She's only seventeen.

She needs to learn to be a child again.

Daylight Savings

I watched the clocks lose their bearings, go from progress back to one. The world was quiet. There should have been applause.

I'm pushing people away again. I'm watching from afar. She giggles. She takes his hand. He doesn't let go.

I just want to feel warm.

The winds are blowing and the winter is coming. Brown and tired, the last leaves take their falls. Gravity wins again. I stopped fighting years ago.

Milk and Cookies

I've asked the scholars and the rabbis and the homeless on the streets. I've wandered through gardens, over bridges, past sculptures in the park. I don't know what I'm looking for, but I haven't found it yet.

Midnight fades to early morning. Between the skyline and parking garage, there's always light outside my window. It reminds me that I'm not alone.

New York City, I can hear you breathing. I want to feel you near. It's me and my words again, but I know you're always listening. Late nights become sleepless nights become early mornings. You don't sleep either, though. I think you understand.

New York City, when was the last time you closed your eyes? Did you dream of Autumn's sweet vanilla or of Summer's burning gaze? Did you wake refreshed or feverish? Hot or cold?

Do you ever dream of me?

I want to learn your secrets. I want to traverse your undergrounds and walk across your stones. Pitter against patter. Heel clicks and clatters. Coffee on the run. Silence.

I think you understand.

456

Do they make love

with their words

or with their hands

(ripped,

calloused,

torn with reminders

yet soft to the touch)

bleeding beneath the sheets?

Passion or regret?

He remembers what he lost

and what he has to lose

and for whom he will not fight.

She shudders.

There's a coldness

through the sheets

and he calls it Winter

but she knows

it's someone else.

She knows,

but she knows

that she knows

that she knows

that she knows

that crying does no good.

That she will remember.

He used to call her beautiful.

That she wants to forget.

Baalat Teshuva

Time is escaping me. It is disappearing beneath the horizon on the wings of birds who forgot to fly.

I don't do thunderstorms well.

When late night hours turn to early morning hours turn to another sleepless night you forget to be transparent. The insomnia is lacing your words again and mother isn't fooled. You forgot your raincoat and your rainboots and your rainbows at the door. This isn't like the movies. If you go outside, you will get wet.

Awakening

It's beginning to feel like autumn, like tights and sweater season, like warm apple cider days. I'm choosing the things that matter. I'm sitting between the present and the future and I need to make it count. The briskness is exhilarating. I can feel it heal my lungs. In. Out. Breathe. This is what we call beauty.

It is the decision to be happy, because that is mine to choose.

I do.

Redecorating

My bed leans against the opposite wall now. The room looks bigger. There's more space to fill.

But I am breathing in the empty, the blank of possibility. It tastes like autumn days soon to come, like watching leaves and betting on the first to fall, like hope. And for a minute, I can pretend that my parent's voices didn't sound so sad. I can pretend that he missed my stutter. I can pretend that the truth doesn't feel like lying. I can try and believe that I made the right decision.

I didn't.

No one knows that more than I.

And I don't know if it's something I plan on sharing.

But it's something I regret.

Weather Patterns

He asked me to stay the night. I shouldn't have, but I did. I should have known better.

There's another tornado brewing. The leaves are getting restless. I've already been swept away. I just want to find home.

Through the Looking Glass

I grabbed a tree which hadn't toppled and let its roots ground me. Waves of familiar and not hustle by. I observe. I am learning how to be comfortable by myself with others.

I have one ear tuned to Berlioz, the other to the beginning of autumn breeze. A man is reading a newspaper a couple paces away. A woman attends to her neglected crossword. Friday's are always the hardest. A child chases his red balloon. A girl doles out cigarettes. A boy lights up.

Was this the spark he was looking for?

Would he know if I asked him?

Would I know if he asked me?

Next week we relive Creation. Next week the fist-shaped bruise will further fade.

It is the season of beginning again.

Hineini

It is the season of discovering self.

It is the season of discovering self again and I know it is different than before. I know I am different than before. I have been scattered across floors and subways and pavements wiped clean with rain. I have scribbled my words in notebooks and breathed sounds through empty air. I have organized and reorganized, yet there are corners still untouched.

There are secrets still unfolding.

There are answers still untold.

And my soul is sitting atop the radiator with my chumash and siddur and words of Jewish wisdom and pictures for the times I need reminding.

I shouldn't be afraid. That's what he told me. But sometimes I forget to breathe.

I shouldn't be afraid.

It is the season of discovering self and I am going back to the beginning, to the questions of yes and no and the give and take and the in and out. I am laying myself out before me, before you, so I can learn it all again.

And as the clock ticks early morning, I will stand before the sunrise and the New York City stare, and I will cry out through the dew drops:

Here I am.

Black and White

Black and blue and gold and bronze and the sun is disappearing beneath the horizon. The radiator's fading in and out. Another day unwinds.

My gaze shifts from the window. I'm caught in might-have-beens. And the tang of disappointment is fresh upon my lips. Breathe in and out. You are stronger than this.

You are stronger than this. That's what they tell you- the friends and the parents and the strangers on street corners. You are stronger than this. They know you don't believe it. They know your smiles are faked. They know the neurons are firing from your fingers to your brain, that your hands are moving all the right places... but it doesn't mean a thing. You are stronger than this.

Maybe if I repeat it enough times, I'll believe it too.

See, I chose not to draw the blinds tonight. I'm peaking at an empty parking lot and a flashing beacon far away. I'm staring at the pictures on the sill. I want to go back.

You are stronger than this.

They know you don't believe it, but no one wants to speak the truth.

Objectivism

New York City, you are learning to excite me again. I'm falling in love with Metro bus rides and the spark of the street, though close to dawn, with the feel of your pavement beneath my feet as my pitter meets your patter. I'm falling into your easy confidence, thinking maybe I can borrow some for myself. Maybes don't seem as distant anymore.

I hear the sound of breathing beyond my wall.

I like the feeling of being alive.

Westward

It's raining in the city. We're huddling in raincoats instead of opening our arms, and the fog of the day has hidden my skyline in the distance.

I miss the view of skyscrapers that remind me of what there is to achieve, how high there is to climb. I miss meeting eyes with the Empire State.

We Are One

I said a few too many goodbyes a few too many hours ago. I've started feeling dependent again. I know it's right, but that doesn't make it easy. I know it means I care.

I am stronger than my fears.

I promise to show you that.

I

He uncovered me. In one glance he knew... not my secrets, but that I had them. In one glance he was begging for entry, entreating, asking me to help him understand. I let him watch my teardrops fall. I stood staring, wondering how this simple faith could hurt so much, how having someone care could leave me frozen. I stood staring, my eyes pleading... isn't this naked enough?

The mask I've worn is defrosting. There's no relief, only terror. This is not how it's supposed to feel.

And it scares me.

I scare me.

What do I do when no expectations is asking too much? What do I say when the solitude I've been cultivating threatens to overwhelm me, but for all the wrong reasons? What do I say when I don't know how to let go, but there's nothing to hold onto?

With nothing to hide behind, I am not sure who I am, and I'm losing the courage I thought I had. Can you stand beside me? Not judge, just watch, maybe lend a hand... because I need to take one, even when I say I don't, even when I wish I didn't.

Will you hold me?

It feels like an unveiling, except that I'm alive.

Droplets

He is standing at Pisgah. He is standing at Pisgah, and he can taste its honey in the air, but he cannot touch it, and he dare not drink too long. Its flavor is tinged with resentment, and it burns as it runs down his throat. He is staring at the Land and he is crying for release. He is reaching towards the forbidden, but he cannot see his sin. One sip has left him craving more, and he knows it is wrong, but he is still begging. Truth does not come with understanding. And he does not want to understand God's plan.

A formless hand engulfs him. He will know suffering no more.

And when the Temple falls, he will not bear witness.

This is a different humanity now. We have watched walls crumble and mountains shatter and bombs burst in an angry sky. We have watched natural disasters and human disasters, and have prayed to God for answers. Behold the generations who have lived with His silence!

I am a different human. I have known not the comfort of feeling God tremble. I have not known his smile or frown.

I still believe. I still hope. But I do not ask to understand.

Summer Storm

There's a boy learning to ride his bike outside my window. His father's urging faster, faster, and promising he won't fall. The training wheels are off. We're on two wheels now. Two wheels. Two feet. But that doesn't mean we have to stand alone.

I'm taking my road test in two weeks time. I'm leaving for college in six.

I don't have to stand alone.

I'm keeping a catalog of things that matter- like who stood beside me in the rain, like who held my hand as it thundered, like who has let me push them away. And who hasn't.

I'm standing outside under raindrops. I'm letting the current sweep me away. I'm leaning into your embrace a little more surely. My smile's growing a little stronger. Maybe this time will be different. Maybe this time I can allow myself to feel.

Trust.

The storm is raging. I succumb.

Almost Independence

With the corner lamp on, it almost feels like twilight. Through the air conditioner breeze, I cannot hear the rain. I practice what we call pretending.

I'm shivering in 80 degrees.

I don't want to any more.

There's something beautiful about the make believe. There's something beautiful in knowing you hold the answers in your hand. But I don't. And I never will. Can accepting defeat be just as liberating?

I told the doctor there was too much life in me. She didn't seem to understand. But maybe you've felt it- those days when you feel the enormity of the world around you, when you remember something long forgotten and realize how much time has passed, when you want to stop and watch for a bit... but you have to keep walking. So I walk. And I walk. And I watch the world passing. And I'm a part of it... but I'm not. I'm separate too.

She didn't seem to understand.

Maybe some of us have less life to live, so we pack it into all the big moments that take our breath away. Maybe we grew up too early. Maybe we grew up too late. Sometimes, I can't find the distinction.

It's overwhelming, but it's beautiful. And I think that's what it's supposed to be.

It's a new month and a new era and a new sort of independence. I've fought a different battle than my Fathers, but I've been fighting.

And I still make eyelash wishes, but I think it's getting better.

And you know what?

I am happy.

I am happy and maybe, just maybe, that is all that matters.

Pomp and Circumstance

The sky's gleaming gray and smells of upcoming storm. It rumbles with Earth's low chuckle and flashes with his lamplight home. I hope he finds the fire lit and the the coffee warm and his mother smiling. I hope his tears never fall.

It's funny how when I let this sit for a day he's sunny again. I guess he found what he was looking for.

I wish they called it commencement instead of graduation. It's not so much moving on as moving forward. The truth is, we're all still looking. So why pretend we're found instead?

In three days I will don a cap and gown and walk a few hundred paces through an audience filled with family and friends and smiling faces I do not know. I'll stand beside a couple friends and a couple more acquaintances and another hundred or so people who walked the halls with me once in a while, maybe every day. But does it matter?

I do not know the answer.

I do not know many answers. Maybe I should start making a list.

But the unknown fascinates me, you know. I love the thrill of discovery. There's such potential. There's such possibility. There's no boundaries on the unknown or the unimaginable, because I will never have all the answers. It's liberating in a way.

I'm going back to the beginning. I want to understand what it was like before innocence and why we believe the Garden's still green.

I need my nail polish to remind me of apples, not blood.

Why?

The sun isn't setting. The world is turning. We're trusting gravity to keep us grounded. Sometimes, I wish I could feel it, feel the earth spin. Sometimes, I think I need that reminder- our world isn't as stable as we'd like to believe.

Something has me doubting tonight. I don't know what it is, but I can feel it. Something's going wrong. It's in the way I can't get comfortable. It's in the lack of breeze. It's in the weight of my body. I'm heavier tonight. My thoughts are weighing me down.

The sky was pink earlier... and I thought of blood. Does the sky hurt when she bleeds? Does she realize what she looks down upon? Is the rain tonight her tears? Is the thunder her anguish, her grumble, her cry to God? Is He listening? What about her lightning? Is she begging for truth as much as I?

I wish a bolt of that lightning would strike me, reach out its tendrils and remind me of what's real.

Memoria

In my life, I have yet to learn a truth. Did you know that? Does it scare you as much as it scares me?

On days like today I want to shake somebody. I want to scream. I want someone to listen, not laugh and tell me that my distrust is unfounded. Don't you get it? There's a different story every channel I flip. I don't know whether to think defense or terrorism or accident or make-believe. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe I should just stand and stare? That's more effective anyway.

This morning, I stood in procession to honor those who have fallen. Did they understand what they were fighting for? Would it have mattered?

I missed out on something. I've been so busy growing up. I have piles of cutouts- newspaper articles and plastered smiles and laundry list accolades. I'm the kid who doesn't have to introduce herself, who's supposed to do great things, whose grandmother answers the phone with a "What else have you won?" Has she considered that sometimes maybe I call just to hear her... that maybe sometimes I just need a hello?

It scares me. I'm living days I can't take back. I'm leaving days I can't take back.

I'm not ready.

Retrogression

Welcome to the 5770th year of creation. My not-yet-seventeen is tired. Imagine how God must feel.

What's it like, I wonder, to understand always, to have been before the before, to be after the after? I don't spend much time in the present, you know, though I don't have far to wander. Still, I linger in the past and scramble for the future. I pitter-patter across ancient streets in next year's trends, with last year's promises. But I still have my mortality. I still have that glimmer. I know it all will end.

Does it scare you that what I look forward to most is what I'll leave behind? Should it scare me?

I have an unhealthy grasp of the ephemeral. I don't expect things to last. I hope for moments and make provisions so they can't occur. I write and draft and draft and redraft and stop before I finish. I leave my thoughts undone so I can come back to them tomorrow, but tomorrow becomes today. When I don't sleep, I miss the distinction.

You see, I passed a woman the other day. She had an old cap and a shopping cart of recyclables. She had a beautiful morning and a beautiful smile, and for a moment, she had someone to enjoy it with. For a moment, I had something to share. Her face light up that morning, you know. It shouldn't have. She should have known many hellos. She should have shared many smiles. Her laugh should not have been broken, throaty without practice. That morning shouldn't have been special.

People have been telling me how memorable I am. I take the time to care and I'm told that makes me different. I wish it weren't so.

Pursuit of Happiness

I know a boy who remembers me with 3 A.M.s and the scent of sour apple, and a man who's not sure who he's become. I know a mother and a father and a sister who laughed when she was born. I know your birthday and your number and your eyes before they find me. I know more than I realize and less of what matters. I used to think, not feel.

I'm taking a minute, and I don't know if I'll return it.

My window is open so I can listen to the patter of puddle on sidewalk. I have eighteen questions and only three answered. I have a mug of orange tea which I drink warm, not hot. I have a song in my head and another on the radio. I have a box full of memories and a lifetime to make them.

I have a story and people who share it. It would have been enough.

You know, the future is a funny thing, and maybe it's just me, but I keep going back to the past. I think that's the way it's supposed to be, though. I wasn't the only one who shaped me. I had help. They mattered then. They matter now.

We grow together, and it is beautiful.

Light Lemonade

Do you remember those spoons which used to change with the temperature so you always knew if your soup was too hot or too cold... or maybe just right? Well, mine stopped changing. I don't remember when it stopped, but it did. And yesterday, no matter how much I tried, its yellow wouldn't budge.

Yellow- like the dandelions which will always be flowers to me, and the sun when she's smiling, and the flash of a moment being captured. Yellow- like the uncertainty of the in between, when you can't decide if you should stop or go.

Should I go?

I've been standing on corners too often these days. There are worlds of opportunity, but I'm too afraid to touch them. Sometimes, I catch myself reaching out, fingers unfurling unconsciously.

Stop.

I love the smell of after rain because it tastes like freedom.

Performance Art

I am opposed to definition. Maybe it's because I'm not good with my words. Wait, wait- I know what you're thinking, and sure, I talk and write, and sometimes it makes sense on paper, but when you're standing next to someone and you can't find the words to explain why tonight you needed that smile or why you feel more connected to the man you passed last Wednesday on the Boardwalk than to the people you see everyday or why everything is perfect but it isn't enough, or really, it's too much... or why I don't know how to finish this thought...

I spent a weekend in New York City to learn that I will always be a tourist. And it doesn't matter how many train rides I take or how many apartments I frequent or how many times I haven't signed my name in a museum's welcome book.

It's funny I suppose.

New York, I would ask you to sit, but you always take your coffee on the run.

Counting Cubits

Stop.

We're living life in the fast-lane, and we forget about the little things, like laughing with your sister and smiling at a stranger and listening to old recordings to remind ourselves of where we've been and who we've yet to be. Articles of clothing, earring backings, scribbbled wonderings- I'm leaving pieces everywhere, so someday I can find myself again. And I'm collecting too- goodbye hugs and secret smiles and flickering lights below the horizon when the sun has yet to set.

Slow down.

I want to watch the flowers again, how they smile at the taste of dew.

Slow down.

I'm still a little girl, sneaking into mommy's makeup. And it's not because I'm losing weight again or because Bubbe's dying or because I'm meeting new people or because I'm leaving behind others or because I'm scared of what the future brings. It's not because our roof's still leaking or because the rain is stopping or because she falls asleep before I can now. And it's not because I don't have my own, but because sometimes, I just need to feel her. Sometimes, I just need to be held.

Slow down.

It rained for forty days and forty nights, and when the storm finally broke, it wasn't the floods that drowned me. It was the quiet, which said too much.

Turn, turn, turn

I'm craving shehecheyanu.

The sun was shining today, but it was cooler off the water, and sometimes, winter brings more comfort than the shiver of summer breeze. I'm learning of acceptance. I watch the tide roll in.

I know I shouldn't hope for it to linger, but yet, I always do.

(There's a photo sitting by my bedside. If you turn me sidewise, I look like I am smiling. I lock me in a slanted frame.)

To everything there is a season. We expect the sun to rise, the moon to set, the birds to sing, the snow to fall. We trace footsteps in the sand and know they will be washed away. We plant flowers in the springtime and know they're meant to bloom.

I've discovered my mortality.

I've begun imagining a future, and its glimmer tears apart my night. I'm collecting borrowed time. I look three ways before crossing the street. I wash my hands until they bleed. The day still shines ephemeral.

Still, the music always warns her end.

Upon Starrise

Tonight, I watched the thunder rumble. I felt the crash of lightning and saw the world illuminated in a flash of darkness. I waited for God in a breath of silence, and cried out- Sh’ma Yisrael! Adonai eloheinu! Adonai echad!

I did not wait for an answer.

I’m slipping under day-cold blankets and dreaming of a cackling fire in a home too far away. Cackling. Crackling. I don’t know how to roll my Rs.

Daddy’s fixing fixtures, or at least he’s trying to. I watch him reaching towards the ceiling. I wish I knew what he was looking for.

You’re not supposed to feel the world spinning. You’re not supposed to gasp for stronghold, grasp for deeper breath. The screaming should have stopped this morning. The echoes of frustration should not fall with sharded glass upon my floor.

Tomorrow, I’m sleeping in. If I wake beyond the crack of dawn, I won’t have to watch her shatter.

Springtime for Winter

The first day of spring, everybody wanders to the Boardwalk and steps onto the beach and pretends to feel a warmth in cool sand between their toes. They talk about lions and the learning of innocence and the coming of a lamb we no longer sacrifice. They talk of yesterday’s winds and flooding, and of March’s growing roar, but the power’s back on and we no longer see.

Last night, I woke upside down and dizzy from the weight of the world spinning beyond my grasp. The clock read 3:22. I’m teaching myself to sleep, but until then, I search for meaning. Gematria holds no answers yet. And Atlas’s only shrugging.

I’ve surrounded myself with textbooks and papers and outlines due too late. My work’s divided into chapters, but the words all feel the same. And I cannot learn of justice in a world of black and white.

I am the dissenting opinion. I am the past which history lauds, yet loathes. I am the one who walks among you and imagines anonymity. I’m not finding my voice; I’m losing it.

When I tell you not to love me, you’re not supposed to listen.

L'dor Vador

Tonight I spanned three generations. I held hands with my future and my past and we danced and sang until the lines blurred and youth countered experience and I was left with only possibility.

Starlight, Starbright

I’m trying to understand happiness and why someone who has so much can feel so little.

I’m somewhere between comfortable and freezing. I’m somewhere between anxious and confused and exhausted and overwhelmed. I’m somewhere trying to learn to understand. I’m thinking every breath. In. Out. In. Out. Out. Out. Out.

There are people I want to talk to, but I don’t know what to say.

My bones are creaking and the house is quiet and my breathing’s ragged and I hope the stars are shining somewhere beyond my window. I hope someone sees them and smiles and I hope tonight, someone’s wish comes true.

Winter Walking

Stoplights change from red to green. Someone stops. Nobody goes.

It's 10 pm on a Saturday night and I'm listening to the quiet of a winter evening. Somebody's laughing beneath my window. Somebody's always laughing. I want to catch it in a jelly jar and watch it ripple in the vacuum, travel faster than the speed of sound – because everyone deserves to hear a smile.

(I've reached the moment before I'm falling. Life doesn't always give you the chance to jump.)

It's 10 pm on a Saturday and I cannot feel the breeze. I've never felt more winded. Somewhere on the shore the tide is breaking. The starshine's twinkling green. The moon is shining violet because today it's feeling blue. And orange. And gold. And silver's just like sliver, except the latter feels more hole.

(Yesterday I watched a man relearn to walk. He had to remind himself to breathe.)

I'm waiting for a sunrise, always waiting.

Braids

For the first time, I wore my hair in braids, and I began to wonder how something so simple can be so tangled and how something so twisted can be broken down into three strands and how all these little complexities and normalcies and everything in between are me.

Everything lies in piles.

Drafts and revisions and notes and corrections clutter the floor and scream for me to tidy the past, but I’m looking towards the future. I gather my words, devour dictionaries, but there’s still too much to say.

A day off in winter. It’s 50 degrees and it’s shining, but God’s threatening - it won’t last - and I don’t know if I believe in Him, but I believe in the weather and I believe in the time and I believe in the changes which won’t come to pass.

I’m feeling the breeze through the window and its cold reminds me of things I want to miss and holes I cannot fill and a hunger food cannot diminish.

I am starving.